This is the first post in a series. The series will explore some of the common hesitations when it comes to outsourcing and delegating work to a virtual assistant. Our hope is to shed some light on working with a virtual assistant and clear away some of the doubts so that more people can benefit from having support for their business.

Major Outsourcing Pain Point – It’s Too Expensive

Many people hold back from hiring a virtual assistant because they feel like they can’t afford it. Many entrepreneurs feel like they just can’t add one more expense to their business. So, instead of hiring people to do specific things in their business, the entrepreneur does it all and feels like if it isn’t costing them anything, it’s the better decision. Unfortunately, this ends up being quite detrimental to the business’ growth because one person does not a bustling business make. You see, everyone has a limited number of hours in a day and not using them wisely can cost your business big time.

Hiring a virtual assistant is entirely affordable IF you spend the time you gain doing business building activities. What this means is instead of hiring a virtual assistant and then popping offline to go and get your hair done or take in a round of golf, you want to instead be spending the newly found time doing activities in your business that will generate you revenue. This way, you aren’t actually seeing a business expense but you are actually gaining new earning potential.

The hard facts

Let’s break this down further. Imagine that you can earn $50 per hour if you are sitting at your desk, hammering away on client work. Now let’s imagine that you spend 50% of your day doing client work and 50% of your day doing all of the other business stuff that no one pays you for — marketing, accounting, blogging (unless you are a paid blogger), etc. Essentially, this means that you are earning $200 for an 8-hour workday because you’re only working 50% of the day and you’re earning $50/hour.

Now imagine that you’ve hired a virtual assistant and you’re paying them $25/hour. They have taken over your accounting, your blogging and even some pieces of your marketing and now, you have an extra 2 hours of your day that has been freed up. If you went and got your hair done or took in that round of golf then yes, your business now sees an expense of $50/day. However, if you instead spent the newly found time doing more client work, you’d see a net profit of $50 for the time you are paying your VA. Sure, you aren’t earning $100 for those 2 hours but you are still earning revenue versus not earning revenue at all.

What is your time worth?

What it really boils down to is the value of your time. A perfect, domestic example is house cleaning. Sure, I could clean my house and spend four hours on a Saturday or Sunday doing so but maybe that doesn’t make perfect sense. If I were to sit at my desk and hammer out client work for those four hours at $50/hour, I’d be looking at earning $200 for that time. If a house cleaner cost me $75 for those four hours, I’d be seeing a net profit of $125, which means that it pays for me to bring on the expense of a house cleaner.

We outsource things in our lives and in our businesses because our time is more valuable than the specific task we are currently doing. It does not make good business sense for you to be doing your website updates or fiddling with your graphics if you are not getting paid to do so. The quicker that this logic is realized, the more successful your business will be because your focus will be exactly where it should be — on activities that directly result in revenue for your business.

61-Page Delegation Workbook FREE!

This free e-book is broken down into 30 days and will teach you, every single day, one thing you can delegate out to a virtual assistant today. The e-book will also give you practical advice around those to-dos (ie: why you should do them or resources that will be helpful) and will get you thinking in that delegate it and forget about it mindset.